


The Autumn of his Life

by Gelsey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 07:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gelsey/pseuds/Gelsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victoire must fetch something for her dying father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Autumn of his Life

_Crunch, crunch._

Leaves crackled under Victoire’s feet as she walked up the path of her childhood home. The noise was too loud in her ears, a reminder of how anal her mother had been about keeping the walkway clear of detritus.

_Snap, crackle._

The way the twigs broke sounded like those times in her childhood when her father had come home and cracked his knuckles, asking where his beautiful girls were and weren’t they going to welcome him home? She would squeal as Bill twirled her and her sister and her mother around and then toss her brother into the air.

Later in life, especially once their mother died, it sounded like his bones and joints protesting. It told of the time he’d no longer been able to lift her at all.

_Hissssss, siiiiiigh._

The wind soughed through the drying grasses and leaves. Victoire trudged to the door, determined, and shivered, hearing her mother’s last breath and her father’s deep sobs. 

Why have I come back? she wondered, hand resting on the cold doorknob. She breathed deeply, filling her lungs with crisp air.

“Because,” she murmured, “he asked you to.” She reminded herself of that as she slammed her shoulder into the door to open it. There was a time it hadn’t squealed or stuck at all.

_Whoooosh._

The wind’s wailing muted after the door closed. Victoire’s shoulders relaxed, and she remembered how safe this place had felt growing up. It felt empty now. Abandoned. 

“What was it he wanted again?” she muttered. Ah, there, on the mantle. That picture. “Oh, yes.” The entire family crowded into the frame, but her Mum and Dad were front and center with Victoire, Dominique and Louis. Victoire cradled it in her hands, that memory of happier times. Back when they weren’t scattered, when all the cares of the world hadn’t settled onto her shoulders. When her father wasn’t dying, in the autumn of his life. 

She returned via Apparition to her father’s room in St Mungos, a liberty only Healers such as she had. But it was too quiet. The walls echoed with silence, the hush acute after the sounds of the season. 

It was too late. He was gone, though he lay in the bed. Gone, before she could tell him she’d found it again—the family, the feeling of home.

_Silence._

Gone. Again. The picture dropped, the glass shattered.

Gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Bill/Fleur LDWS, I believe.


End file.
